Thursday, June 07, 2012

This album recalls the beatles-- but circa mid-sixties, a decade before this record came out. There are elements that hark back to the trumpet solo in Penny Lane, the Daytripper song, Norwegian Wood's triple-rhythm, etc. The end of track 11 sounds like the brass of Hey Jude's finale. Then, the final song is a doo-wop that goes all the way back to the fifties. I dedicate this record to the sharing spirit of our community: long live prog...

The front cover of course is a homage to Yellow Submarine, probably the greatest animated movie ever made. The back cover has another one of those incredible seventies group photos -- check out the hot pants the chick is wearing, and then take a closer look at the tall guy, Mike Frajra (the arranger) -- his jeans are so tight they are splitting his scrotum. I wonder how could that have been comfortable? And what about the huge glasses, what chance those will be back soon in fashion again?For those who have complained about the quality of my professional samsung camera (which amazingly also sends email, connects to the internet, does video, and even -- can make actual phone calls with other humans!) I've made a close-up of the back photograph. I left it blurry partly on purpose so the complaints can keep pouring in and partly to censor the view. Incidentally in the last post the theme park about " wunderwald " was all a joke -- in reality this theme park was a sad chapter in the history of the culture of children's amusement parks, it was really an educational Disney-like park in Orlando, West Germany, all about the Stalin-era gulags, in which the kids were made to work in industrial output factories making pig iron (the iron was actually fed to 'capitalist' pigs) along the course of a huge roller coaster and the ride ended in a large mass grave-- all the while the Internationale was being played and they were forced to read 1000-page novels about existential angst and unhappy marriages. In the "haunted house" in the shape of a matryoshka doll they were poked with pretend poisoned umbrellas and had to escape only to wind up in another smaller doll. The most popular ride was strapped on a ballistic missile which went up and back down on Reagan-era Washington, DC. while a tape of Reagan saying "the evil empire!" played over and over. Oddly enough, admission was free, but the kids had to bribe the guards to get out of there, with good cabbage rolls. It was closed down quickly--though not because of the questionable content (which actually was well received by Germans), but because of the high prices inside (which were actually average for the black market, for example a small plastic bottle of 'bourgeoisie' water cost 400 mark).